Nosy Friends and tiny Crushes
by IceQueenJules26
Summary: Ash hated college. Mostly. But not all of it, like his friends and swimming practice - and a specific redhead in particular...


College _sucked _. There was no doubt about it. Maybe it was the fact that Ash was ridiculously overwhelmed by his study and in no way prepared for life without his mom, but whatever the reason, it sucked.

He didn't even know why he'd chosen to go to College. He had never had plans to even go, but when they offered him a full Modern Pentathlon scholarship he just hadn't been able to say no to. The schoolwork he wasn't cut out for, but at least he excelled in his sport; and as long as he'd win no one would ask about his bad exams.

There were a few things that didn't suck about College though. There were his friends - mainly Brock, Tracey, Drew and May - and his sport, including amazing training facilities, and most importantly, there was _her _\- the pretty redhead he hadn't been able to get out of his head for months now.

She was beautiful, smart and funny, and the brightness of her blue eyes competed with the water in the pool he always saw her next to. Their teams shared training facilities and some of the training units, even though she was a full swimmer. Sometimes, he had the chance to talk to her, and they'd start to banter, but mostly he looked at her from afar and wondered about the _what if _, while she probably didn't even know his name.

So yeah, he had a crush. A big one.

A fact that his friends would not let him forget about. Even if he still denied it.

It was a saturday night, and Ash and his friends had decided to go to a bar, have a few beers and talk. It was still early in their gettogether when Brock brought it up first. "So, Ash, any progress on your crush?"

May almost spit out the sip of beer she'd been taking. "The what now?!" she asked, completely bewildered. Brock on the other hand just blinked.

"Did you not know about that?"

"No!" she stressed, looking around the table. Tracey nodded enthusiastically and Drew just raised his eyebrow sarcastically, as if to say _how can you not know about this? _.

"Cause it's not true!" Ash chimed in vehemently, ignoring the heat in his cheeks that told the opposite. "Don't listen to a word they say."

Drew's eyebrow rose even higher. "That sounded completely different yesterday, when you were drunk as fuck and wouldn't shut up about the "prettiest girl you'd ever seen"."

"I did not say that!"

Tracey chuckled, head slightly bend. "Oh really?" he asked, and his tone warned Ash not to open that can of worms, before he reached for his bag and with it, clearly for his phone, where he probably had some audio or even video proof for Drew's statement.

_Damn Tracey and his need to protocol everything. _

"Okay, maybe I do have a teeny tiny little crush…" Ash admitted meekly.

"Maybe?" Tracey asked, Brock added a "teeny tiny?" and Drew didn't even have to say anything, just look at him with that raised eyebrow of his.

"Fine. You know what? You're right! I do have a crush! A huge one! But it's not my fault, okay?! She's like a mermaid in the water if mermaids would make everyone fall in love with them!"

After Ash's outburst it was silent for a while, just gulping and stunned looks, then May interrupted it with a gasp. "Wait, a mermaid? - And Brock, didn't you say she's a redhead?"

Brock nodded, unsure about what was going on. "Yeah, why?"

May blinked repeatedly. "You're not by any chance talking about Misty, are you?"

Ash stared at her, bewildered and a bit confused. "How do you know her name?"

A loud bang rang through the bar as May smacked her hands onto the table in front of her, her eyes shining excitedly and her voice rising in both pitch and volume. "Ash, that's amazing news! I know her! I know Misty! And she hasn't stopped talking about you since you met at the start of the year!"

The whole table lost their shit. "What?" they all screamed in unison, obviously more than surprised, and May nodded enthusiastically. "I would've helped her, but honestly, Ash has never shown any interest in girls so I wasn't even sure if he was romantically available." The boys chuckled, murmuring _fair enough _and continued to banter - there was just one person on the table who was entirely silent.

Ash. He hadn't said a word since May's revelation, still staring at her like he'd seen a ghost, but it took the others a while to recognize the state he was in.

"He's in shock," May analyzed after minutes of weird winking, snipping and other antics to get Ash back to reality. "Dimwit," Drew said drily but couldn't fight the smile when May jabbed him into the side with her elbow.

"He's swooned so much about her to us, he better has the guts to ask her out now," Tracey said cheerfully and conversationally as they all looked at the still shell-shocked Ash, "or I swear I will."

"YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!"

Because they were both stubborn it still took them over a month to truly find to each other, but from that moment on, they were practically inseparable. Misty fitted seamlessly into their group of friends, like she had always belonged there, and it quickly felt like she'd always been there.

And when a few years later Ash and Misty both won gold at the Olympic games in their respective fields they knew they couldn't have done it without the other - or without May, who still took pride in their relationship.


End file.
